Pallian
Also known as: Palian, Balayang (in some records)
Mythological Narrative
In Kulin tellings, Bunjil's brother, who had charge of the waters and who, beating the water with his hands, brought forth the first women.
Scholarly Commentary & Evolution
## Bunjil's brother
Pallian appears in Kulin creation stories as Bunjil's brother, who was given charge of the rivers, creeks, and billabongs. In a telling shared publicly by a Wadawurrung Elder, after Bunjil had made the first men, Pallian began to thump the water with his hands until the water took the shape of two women, who became the first women. Similar accounts were recorded in the nineteenth century in colonial Victoria.
## Names and records
Colonial sources spell his name in several ways, and some associate the name Balayang, and the bat, with Bunjil's brother; whether these are the same figure in every Kulin tradition is not clear from the published records, and this site follows the public Kulin tellings in calling him Pallian.
## Why he matters
Pallian's story makes creation a shared work between brothers, one with the land and one with the water, and it grounds the relationship between men and women in the first acts of making. Like Bunjil's story, it belongs to the Kulin nations, whose own tellings take precedence over any summary here.
Academic Discussion & Critique
Exchange peer-reviewed hypotheses, comparative Indo-European etymologies, and archaeological field interpretations regarding Pallian.
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